So begins Inverting the Pyramid, in a chapter titled From Genesis to the Pyramid, and the evocation of the Old Testament is pretty appropriate in a book that aims to be nothing less than a biblical account of the development of soccer tactics. In some ways, the project has a tinge of lunacy to it. Mr. Wilson seems to assume that the reader will recognize players and coaches ranging from Uruguay to Hungary geographically and from the December 8, 1863 meeting at Freemason's Tavern in London that banned the use of hands in "The Simplest Game" to a 2007 lecture in Belgrade temporally. There can't be more than a tiny handful of obsessives worldwide who can and will follow everywhere the author leads.

But, for the general reader there is a unifying theme being illustrated that makes it possible to follow along, however confusedly at times. The earliest origins of the game the rest of the world knows as football were in a medieval British sport that Mr. Wilson refers to as "the mob game," which "essentially involved two teams each trying to force a roughly spherical object to a target at opposite ends of a notional pitch." As would befit what seems to have been little more than dismounted buzkashi, all of the action and, therefore, all of the men on the field clustered about the "object," not unlike what happens if you put little kids on a soccer field with a ball today. The pyramid of the title was the dominant early formation that grew out of the codification of rules and the more rigorous organization of sides. It was a 2-3-5, meaning: two defenders; three "midfielders"; and five men up front trying to score. Actually, even the central midfielder in the pyramid was an offensive as much as a defensive weapon.

If we recall that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction, we will not be surprised to find that by the end of the book, the formation that has evolved and that Mr. Wilson suggests is the near universal future is a 4-6-0, a set devoid of forwards. Of course, as defensive as that is it isn't quite a 10-0-0, so it's fair to wonder whether we aren't still a ways from the End of soccer History. But what the book charts is the ebb and flow over time between more offense-oriented sets and more defense-oriented and not just the tactical reasons for the changes but the aesthetic tug of war between those who think the game ought to be beautiful and to flow as it only can when going forward versus those who think the point is to win trophies and artistry be damned. One would like to think that spectators, if nothing else, will prevent the game from reaching its logical conclusion, in an entirely defensive shell. Such would render the often unwatchable actually torturous.

At any rate, like Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, this is a book to be read as much for the author's virtuoso performance as anything. Even when you get lost in the thickets you can't help but marvel at Mr. Wilson's command of soccer arcana and his passion for his subject. Learning something along the way is kind of gravy.